Snowflakes and Starcharts
by Hollywithaneye
Summary: A collection of Lokane drabbles and one-shots of varying lengths, co-hosted on my tumblr account. Marked complete because these are all stand alone ficlets/snippets, but I am always adding more.
1. Longing

_Some months back the tumblr Lokane archive, magic-n-science, was running a prompt event to lead up to Thor 2. And I couldn't help but bang a quick little drabble out for it! This should be considered a brief glimpse into Loki's head, set between chapters 17 and 18 in my fic 'To Cleave the Stars'. I hope you enjoy._

_Prompt: Longing_

* * *

Loki had assumed it would be the days that were hardest.

And they were hard, make no mistake about that. When he'd manage to lose himself in the dusty sanctuary of the library until some passage or line or tidbit struck his fancy, and he'd read it aloud (slyly, coyly of course, as if he could pretend it was for his own benefit and not hers), and it wasn't until the silence stretched on mercilessly, unbroken by that tiny greedy gasp of hers, that he'd remember he was alone. That jarring moment was almost the worst - biting into a beautiful fruit only to find it green and sour.

But the nights were agony of a whole new sort. Waking amidst snarled sheets, stiff with sweat that had frozen in the frigid air that blanketed him, azure fingertips brushing a furrowed brow that still felt the downstroke of a kiss' flight.

A child's logic, absurd and yet persistent. He had given this self to her, laid it at her feet along with its mundane twin. How could she not realize? Not come to claim? The potential answers laughed in his ears all night, driving sleep away.

He was riddled with myriad injuries both real and ephemeral, a lifetime of struggle mapped on his body and soul. Cankered slivers of envy that drove relentless red fingers of poison towards his heart. Crooked and jagged scars, cutting like lightning across the pale sky of his skin. But this was something different, pain new and unwelcome. A gently weeping wound that never changed. Never festering, never healing.

A perfect and simple hole. The absence of something essential.

Nurtured by this forlorn meal of memories he supped on each night, that didn't even have the decency to be bitter enough for him to grow to loathe. Just pale imitations - smoke and shadows, withering to ash on his tongue.

Longing wasn't a spread of empty plates, hopeless enough to prompt change.

It was a feast of crumbs that slowly starved, no matter how long one dwelled at the table.


	2. Insecurity

_This is far sillier than I ever usually write, but I was challenged to do fluff - or at least as close as I get. May Loki and God have mercy on my soul for inflicting this level of adorkable on you all._

* * *

She was watching that movie again.

Normally, Loki enjoyed it when she lost herself in a film. When her hand would dip in and out of the bowl of popcorn she insisted on eating, and he was treated to the sight of her absently sucking salt and butter from her fingers. She'd start out curled on her own end of the couch but gradually she'd stretch out, until by the time the credits rolled her toes were burrowed beneath his thigh and she lay warm and languid, practically begging to be kissed.

Sometimes he watched too, because these quiet evenings were the only time she wasn't fixed before her computer typing away, but more often than not he was content to open a book and wait for that moment when she pushed the power button and she was all his again.

Nothing ever seemed to catch her attention long. She alternated between movies packed with loud explosions and quiet conversations and crying women and rambunctious men, seemingly at random.

But this movie…this one was different. She'd watched it at least seven times in the past month since they'd come back to her lab, and he couldn't for the life of him seem to figure out why. It looked brutally depressing, alternating between desperate nude kisses and weeping. Occasional angry yelling. And every time it ended she let out this little sigh that sounded uncomfortably close to the noises he'd thought only himself capable of drawing from her.

Tonight, as the familiar faces went through their pantomime on screen, he found himself gritting his teeth waiting for that moment. And when it came, when that small sound flitted out, he snapped his book shut with a scowl.

"Must we watch this same film, over and over and over?" he growled.

Jane blinked up from reaching for the remote, startled at his outburst. "I wasn't aware you were even really watching."

"How could I not?" he groused. "All that wailing and gnashing of teeth. It's quite distracting."

Jane punched the power button and the screen winked to black. Old leather creaked faintly as she settled back on the battered sofa, crossing her arms and fixing him with a glower. "It's a good movie. You don't have to sit here if you don't want to see it, spoilsport."

"It's not that great. I've seen better acting from those hams in traveling troupes on Asgard," he scoffed. "And don't think I haven't noticed that this same actor has been in at least three different movies you've watched this month."

"Don't tell me you're jealous, Loki!" She laughed, and his frown only deepened.

"I fail to see the humor in that remark," he said icily, but to his horror he felt a dull flush climbing up his cheeks.

Her hands pressed over her mouth, smothering her laugh, but her eyes still sparkled above her fingers. "Oh my god," came her muffled voice. "You _are_ jealous!"

He turned away from her amused grin with a grunt of irritation.

She picked up the movie case and studied it exaggeratedly. "I do suppose he's rather handsome," she drawled, and he couldn't quite smother the growl that rumbled in his throat. "And wonderfully articulate. Educated, intelligent, well-mannered…quite a specimen." She angled a coy look at him from the corner of her eye, and he had to stifle the urge to bat that piece of plastic from her hand."He reminds me of someone, actually."

He refused to play this game. Which is why it was a total mystery to him as to how his lips and tongue formed words. "Who?"

She tossed the box back atop the table before them, and his mouth suddenly went dry as she began to crawl across the cushions towards him, deliberate as a prowling cat. Her brown eyes were coffee-warm as she fixed him with a look that had him shifting his trousers, and a knowing smile curved her lips. "Why, _you_ of course."

He swallowed thickly as her hands walked up his chest and she buried her nose beside his ear, her breath curling about the shell of it and bringing gooseflesh to his arms. "It's a good thing you seem to like me, because you've ruined me completely for any other man, Loki. They all seem like pale imitations of the real thing now." She punctuated her sentence with a nip on his earlobe that fell like a lightning strike and jolted him into motion.

Her squeal echoed through the lab as he scooped her off his lap and into his arms, and if he held her just a bit tighter than usual as they tangled together that night he was sure she would forgive him.

But no matter what she said, he felt infinitely better once they'd left Midgard the next morning and that 'Tom Hiddleston' was realms away.


	3. Apologies

_A brief, alternate-moment set in Thor 2, post Frigga's funeral, inspired by a lovely piece of fanart by gabbiki. (The link to it is on my bio page.) Because my shipper heart would like to think that Jane piques Loki's interest before the infamous punch. He looks far too pleased at seeing her march up to him, am I right?_

* * *

Jane couldn't take this.

Not another moment of feasting, no matter how subdued. Not another of Thor's achingly incomplete smiles, ones that curved his mouth but never melted the ice of his eyes.

She was up from the somber table for some time before anyone even noticed she was gone, her restless feet pacing an aimless path through the shadowed and looming hallways - down staircases and steps, always winding further down, putting as much distance as possible between herself and the scent of smoke that still hung acrid on the breeze outside.

It grew colder and darker. The walls less adorned, the air heavier with went longer and longer between seeing another person, lost within her own thoughts, until when she did happen across a doorway with guards posted outside she nearly stumbled with surprise. The two Einherjar exchanged glances, shifting their weight uneasily as she stepped between them, but made no move to stop her.

What she stepped into wasn't just another gallery filled with gleaming statues and flickering torches though - it was a garish display of men and creatures, stuffed into relentlessly glowing boxes like pieces of art. The cells were clean, and the prisoners that snored softly on pallets and cots looked well enough, but it somehow repulsed Jane more than any dank dungeon might have.

This wasn't a place of punishment. It was a collection, and hubris cloyed the air like incense.

She paced slowly along, unnoticed by the slumbering inmates on her way to the doorway on the opposite wall. Until the last cell in the row drew her reluctant eye, and her steps faltered to a halt. There was only one prisoner here in this cell full of furnishings and books, lying on a narrow bed with one arm flung carelessly out from beneath the covers, eyes closed and breath even.

She knew she should leave. Thor was probably worried about her by now. But she couldn't look away from the face that had lain such waste to her world.

Anger and hatred flared suddenly, so much so that the strange alien presence that was nestled beneath her skin stirred faintly to life. But sorrow and guilt stung sour in her mouth as well, the bitter aftertaste of Thor's sadness as he told her of Frigga's compassion for her lost son and her unconditional love.

What would become of him now? Would they execute Loki? She bore no goodwill towards him, could care less about his life, but her soul quailed at the thought of adding the weight of another death to the already unbearable burden of Frigga's.

Her fingers crept up, pressed flat against the warm surface, and light coruscated around her hand. The smooth glass gave ever so slightly as she bowed her forehead against it with a sigh.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, her voice echoing oddly in this silent hall.

She couldn't say what she was sorry for, or who she was apologizing to. To Thor, for ripping away a mother? To Odin, for plucking out his heart? To Asgard, for stealing a queen? Maybe to herself, for the bloodstains she now bore. Certainly not to the monster that slumbered before her.

But maybe to the boy that lurked in those sleep-softened features, who'd once been so beloved.

He never stirred and never woke, and at long last she turned to leave - never aware of the hollow stare that followed her from a bloodied and disheveled corner, lingering on the doorway long after she'd stepped out of sight.


	4. Sable

_Omg, what am I doing? Let me preface this by saying, I am almost entirely ignorant of the BDSM lifestyle(s). So this is my own, half-baked, mostly clean attempt to fill a request - I hope it doesn't offend anyone._

* * *

_"Be then my slave, and know what it means to be delivered into the hands of a woman."_

―** Leopold von Sacher-Masoch**

Dust coated everything - Jane's hair, her hands, her ratty old clothes. It tickled her nose as it danced in the slanted columns of sunlight that peered over her shoulder, sending her into random fits of sneezing. Apparently there was some point to cleaning one's house, after all - it kept your bookshelves from looking like an archaeologist's heyday at least.

She sighed and pushed away a lock of hair with one grimy hand, then shoved the flaps on one more cardboard box shut and sat back on her heels. A half-dozen more were stacked in a circle about her, each crammed full of her extensive collection of books, waiting to be loaded into the van and trundled to a storage unit. She had no problems leaving everything else in her lab behind, but her books and her equipment were off to a new safe home while she and Loki made their first extended trip to Asgard.

But one of her books was missing.

Jane prided herself on an almost encyclopedic knowledge of her collection, right down to the silliest of trade paperbacks she read herself to sleep with some nights. But as she looked around once more at the bare shelves she was sure her copy of Venus in Furs had wandered off somehow. Which was odd, because she distinctly remembered setting it aside to consider donating. It seemed silly to keep it, a relic of that human sexuality elective she'd been dared to take in college, but she rather liked the tiny hedonistic thrill she got whenever she saw it sandwiched between Carl Sagan and Brian Greene.

No matter. It would turn up or it wouldn't. Jane pushed herself to her feet and climbed into a well-earned bath.

She stepped out of the bathroom some time later, warm and cozy in her bathrobe with freshly dried hair, to find a large elaborately wrapped package sitting on her bed. Black paper, green ribbons - there was little question as to whom it was from. A smile tugged at her mouth as Jane sat on the end of the bed and pulled the box onto her lap, eager fingers tearing into the wrapping.

A smile that turned to a bemused frown as she hauled what seemed like yards upon yards of ebon fur from the depths of the box. Pelts slid like black water through her fingers, soft as a baby's sigh, and she couldn't entirely resist the urge to bring it up and rub it on her cheek before holding it up to view it in entirety. It was a coat, thick fur lined with emerald silk, the sort of garment that a Hollywood starlet might have worn decades ago. Sinfully luxurious, and so unlike anything she'd ever owned or would wear.

"Do you like it?"

Jane started at the sound of Loki's voice purring in her ear. He was standing beside her, having appeared without warning as was his habit, his height bent to bring his face close to hers. Jane smoothed wistful fingers over the warm fur.

"It's lovely," she answered, but her frown deepened. It seemed a waste of such beauty, giving her a gift such as this. Were they going somewhere cold? She'd never feel comfortable wearing something so incongruently luxurious on Earth.

"You are not pleased." Loki's voice was puzzled, and his hand joined hers in stroking the pelts as he sat beside her, the mattress sinking beneath his weight."The color does not suit you? The cut? Tell me, and I shall fix it."

Jane shook her head vehemently. "No, no, it's nothing like that. And I don't mean to seem ungrateful. It's just…" Jane trailed off, and hunched into her shoulders, feeling even sillier and plainer than usual. She would look so foolish in something this fine, like a little girl playing dress-up. "What am I going to do with something like this?" she finished miserably, eyes locked on the opulence spilled across her lap.

His hand stilled beside hers, strands of fur caught between his fingers, and when Jane glanced up his face had gone pale and hard like porcelain.

"Oh," Jane breathed, realization dawning bright and vehement, and that damned nervous giggle of hers slipped loose before she could rein it in. "_You_ found the book."

He stood then, so fast she wasn't even aware he'd moved until he loomed above her. His spine was a harsh line and he kept his face angled away from her no matter how she craned her neck. He refused to meet her eyes. "It was lying out, and I thought…I see that I have misunderstood," he said, and the forced composure of his tone was like a slap of frigid air. "My apologies, Jane."

He stalked towards the door, and although his gait was stiff Jane could see it was a brittle sort of strength. She felt foolish and wretched, her fingers crushing the silk and sable to her chest as she shot up to her feet. She wasn't sure if she could give what he was asking for, but she couldn't let him simply walk out like that, as if the smallest nudge might fracture him.

Silly man and his stubborn pride. She supposed it wouldn't hurt to play along.

Before her nerve broke she untied the belt of her robe and let it puddle around her feet. The silk of the coat was cool as she slid it on over her bare skin, smooth and sleek and heavy. She shivered at the sensation, biting her lip as it caressed her curves. It was the most decadent thing she'd ever felt, and it practically demanded that she stand straight and not insult its magnificence by shrinking.

"Stop." She surprised herself with the steel lace of command that adorned her call. Loki jerked to a halt as if he'd hit the end of a leash, framed within the open doorway. He glanced back over his shoulder, and one trembling hand grasped the doorjamb as his mouth rounded in surprise.

She measured out a path across the room towards him, fur swishing about her calves. She let the front of the coat gape wide, cool air warring with the warmth trapped inside, brushing over her intimately in strokes that teased. The dazed look on his face was as heady and sweet as rich wine, and Jane drank it in greedily. She could almost believe herself a goddess when he looked at her like that - or a valkyrie perhaps, striding amongst the fallen and deeming which were worthy of her attentions.

She reached for his chin, held the firm square of it in her tiny hand as she pulled his face down towards her own none-too-gently. "I don't recall giving you permission to leave," she admonished icily, his skin paling where her fingers dug cruel dimples into his flesh.

He crashed to his knees before her, adoration bright in his eyes, his breath ragged and fast. "Forgive me," he panted, and Jane made no move to suppress the wicked smile that curved her lips, pleasure washing through her at having a being as powerful as Loki quivering at her small feet.

Oh yes, she could definitely get used to this.


	5. Timeslip

_Time-travel AU prompt._

* * *

Jane knew something was wrong the second her watering eyes blinked away the disorienting haze of travel. A gust of wind sent ice clawing across her face, whipping her hair about her in a tangled frenzy and cutting through her t-shirt and jeans as if she wore no clothes at all. Buried up to her calves in a drift of snow, her socks and toes gradually grew damp as melting flakes soaked into her sneakers. Bracing one hand on the rough bark of the spruce before her, she pulled one leg free, stepping forward only to immediately sink up to her thigh, sending her sprawling into the cold embrace of the loose snow.

Sputtering and wiping unruly damp hair from her face as she struggled upright, she almost missed the pale thin hand proffered. Gritting her teeth, she resolutely ignored the offer of assistance and flailed her own way to solid footing, chin lifted imperiously.

"Too proud to accept even a little assistance from the likes of me, Miss Foster?"

Fury had her rounding on one heel, a glare slitting her eyes. "Don't you think you've helped enough, Loki? You messed with the parameters again, didn't you? After I specifically told you not to!"

A delicate pout curled his lips, a practiced moue she didn't buy for a second. "I saved us from blinking somewhere into open space just outside Alfheim, in fact. If you'd just listen to me about compensating for the curvature, I wouldn't have to follow behind you and try to clean up your messes. I've been doing this since your grandmother's grandmother was alive, after all."

Jane threw up her hands and let out an exasperated growl, knowing full well the futility of arguing with Loki about anything. He'd start twisting her words around soon, and before she knew it she'd somehow be apologizing for things she hadn't even done. "You should have run it by me first," she groused, as she bent to retrieve the wormhole generator that had been half-buried in the snow.

He merely lifted one brow in a smirk as he stood with his arms crossed, tall and dark and irritatingly unruffled by the cold. "We could just do this my way, and save all the hassle."

She angrily brushed packed snow from the crevices of her device. She didn't like the amount of moisture that had gotten into the inner workings, and it would be practically useless until she got a chance to dry it out. Attempting a jump now might short out the delicate circuitry Tony had crafted. When she finally answered, unease lent her tongue a sharper edge than usual. "And then I'd learn nothing, and be utterly dependent on you. Thanks, but no thanks - that's not why I struck this deal."

_And I don't trust you_ was on the tip of her tongue, but she held back the rote reply. After months of wary partnership, she knew it wasn't true. He could have crushed her as easily as a cockroach a thousand times over, and she rather thought he'd come close the first few times she'd angered him. Now he seemed to find her pique amusing, for some reason she struggled to understand.

Maybe living a thousand years simply meant that you sought out any sort of novelty, no matter how trivial.

He merely shrugged, and stepped away to survey the landscape around the hopefully temporarily defunct device into the bag on her shoulder, Jane waded through the snow until she reached his side, trying desperately not to shiver as another gust of wind buffeted her.

The broken treeline of furred evergreens they stood in gave way to an open expanse, studded with boulders that huddled beneath blankets of downy white. Across that unwelcoming plain was a village of small wooden buildings, clustered around a long hall that towered above them all. Smoke curled lazily up from each roof, hazing purple in the setting sun, and Jane had to stop herself from tearing off across the field towards those fires. Something was wrong here…there was no road to be seen, no power lines tethering those buildings. No cars parked outside. Flexing fingers that were slowly numbing, she frowned over at Loki. "Where are we? Is this some other realm?"

The glance he angled at her was uncharacteristically sober, and Jane's already sinking stomach spiraled ever faster downward. "I'm not so sure that _where_ is the question, Miss Foster, so much as _when_. And unfortunately, even my magic cannot slip the stream of time."

Before her stuttering mind could catch up he began walking towards the small village, and she had to scramble to follow, stepping in the path he broke through the snow as she tried to process what he'd said. "When?" she echoed wanly, recalling a spirited debate she and Erik had had once over the plausibility of time travel via wormholes. "Oh crap…what if we created a Roman ring? That shouldn't be possible…" She trailed off and trotted to keep up.

Inexplicably, Loki's stride grew even more eager as they closed in on the large hall, and the beginnings of a smile hovered about his mouth and sparked in his eyes. Solid walls of timber loomed over them, broken by large doors on one end, and as they stopped just shy of them Jane eyed the structure, memory stirring to life. She'd seen a building almost like this, reconstructed in the museum at the Tromsø University in Norway.

They were standing outside an honest-to-God Viking mead hall.

As she gaped in disbelief, Loki's hand fell on her shoulder and she leapt at the unaccustomed contact. "Jane," he said as he stared intently down at her, and a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold raced through her at the sound, the familiar syllable made new by his sinuous voice. He'd never called her by her first name before. "We can find shelter here, and food. A place for you to examine your device, and come up with a way to send us home."

"But?" She voiced the unspoken word he'd left hanging in the air.

"These will be good men, but rough. Not like the men of your day, or my world even. Not a place for an unmarried woman." His ominous tone told her all she needed to know, and as much as she hated to admit it, he was probably right. She'd be hard pressed to be taken seriously or move freely here.

"So what do you suggest?"

He gently cupped her chin in one hand, and the startling warmth of his skin against her chilled flesh had her sighing into the contact. Embarrassed, she lifted her gaze to find his jade eyes locked gleefully on hers and a wicked smile playing about his lips. "How quickly do you think you could learn to answer to Sigyn?"

The blush that heated her cheeks was _almost_ enough to make her forget about the cold.


End file.
